Great Doctor Ling Ran

“Dong Sheng, Dong Sheng!” Zuo Cidian squeezed through the crowd as he shouted Dong Sheng’s name.

He met Dong Sheng and even got massages from him when he was still buttering up to Ling Ran in Lower Groove Clinic. He had a good impression of the young monk.

When Dong Sheng saw Zuo Cidian, he also felt that he was a familiar face. He hurriedly got up and said to a dozen people who sat opposite him, “That will be all for today. If you have any questions later, you can come to the temple…”

“Dong Sheng, what are you doing?” Zuo Cidian looked at the geode filled with money. His eyelid twitched. ‘What a miserable geode, let’s hope its crystals aren’t broken.’

Dong Sheng smiled at Zuo Cidian and said, “Everyone has a lot of doubts. I want to help and try to answer some of their questions. For those that I can’t answer, I’ll record them down, take them to my master, and ask him.”

“Your master is so far away. These people will have gone home by the time you ask him.” Zuo Cidian could not help but laugh.

Dong Sheng shook his head. “No, I already made a promise with my master. Every night, we contact each other through video call and check on my daily homework.”

Zuo Cidian was speechless. “Chat with each other through video calls? The last thing your master is lack when he’s in a temple is time, right?”

“Master is very busy. In the morning, he will plant vegetables and exercise, check on my morning classes, make breakfast, clean the temple and make lunch after having breakfast. After dinner, Master will watch the news broadcast, bathe and change his clothes, apply Mayinglong Musk Hemorrhoids Ointment Cream, and then make time for a video call.” Dong Sheng counted very seriously with his fingers.

Zuo Cidian listened carefully in the first half, but his facial expression changed when he heard the last part. It looked very stiff.

When he thought of the huge amount of Mayinglong Musk Hemorrhoids Ointment Cream used by the old monk every day, Zuo Cidian suddenly had a thought that if the Mayinglong family provided memberships, the old monk would be an Eight-star Member.

“Alright, come with me.” Zuo Cidian grabbed Dong Sheng and started walking as if he was walking with his own son.

Dong Sheng was obedient. He grew up seeking alms from hundreds of families. Obedience was natural to him.

However, some people around him were reluctant to give him up and asked, “Master Dong, are you leaving already? Will you come again tomorrow?”

“I will be going to class tomorrow.” Dong Sheng bowed.

“What a pity.” A middle-aged lady shook her head and said, “You’re very good with words, and I love listening to you.”

An old man nearby saw this, coughed, and asked, “Master Dong, are you going to stay in the capital by yourself, or are you staying at a temple?”

Dong Sheng hesitated a moment before he whispered, “I study at the Institute of Buddhist Studies and live in the college.”

“That’s easy. We’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” The old man smiled and handed him a business card, saying, “We all love to hear what you say. It’s easy to understand, and we feel more enlightened.”

“I am glad that I am able to help all of you. You can come to me during the weekends,” said Dong Sheng as he bowed. “There should be no class on weekends.”

“It’s okay, you go ahead and do what you need to do. If we can’t find you, we’ll just carry out with our own businesses.”

Those people only let Dong Sheng and Zuo Cidian go after they fully voiced their intentions.

Zuo Cidian clicked his tongue a couple of times, looked at Dong Sheng, and said, “I didn’t expect that you can have people wrapped around your finger at such a young age.”

“Master said I have strong ties of fate with Buddha.”

“Ties of fate with Buddha?” Zuo Cidian shook his head. “Say something that can be quantified, will you? Other than ties of fate with Buddha, what else did your master see about you?”

Dong Sheng did not doubt him as he pondered and said, “Master said that I don’t have to worry about food and clothing in the future, someone will build a big temple for me. Master also said by that time, he wants to live at the room in the south…”

Zuo Cidian chuckled. “The definition of not having to worry about food and clothing is pretty vague. I’ve heard that the kasaya that you monks wear are not cheap. Building a temple is too much of an exaggeration, bad nowadays. It’s so troublesome to build a new temple…”

Dong Sheng did not argue with him, but he firmly believed that when his master was not tormented hemorrhoids, whatever he said would come true.

Zuo Cidian led Dong Sheng through the hall and the corridor before they directly entered the operating area.

At the door, Zuo Cidian asked for a pair of scrubs for Dong Sheng. Once he changed into it, he said, “Doctor Ling is eating at the restaurant inside. He might not go out today. Once you’re inside, don’t walk around carelessly. There are doctors and nurses everywhere. Don’t walk around in the operating theater as well.”

“Okay,” said Dong Sheng and asked, “Does Doctor Ling also have to perform surgeries every day in Beijing?”

“There’s no other choice. There are so doctors are around here who came to watch him,” Zuo Cidian said, and he could not stop smiling.

The juniors would only able to survive if someone paid attention to their seniors.

Ever since Associate Hospital Director Wang of Beijing University Sixth Hospital proposed the principle that the Pathology Department should be set up close to the operating theater, Professor Feng had put forward on the theory to integrate the Pathology Department with the operating theater. In short, it was a green light to do hepatectomy pathological examinations, and they were even to perform those examinations as quickly as possible.

In addition, theoretically, measures such as cutting down the time during the surgery promise could allow good elite doctors to perform around two hepatectomies. Although they dared not choose the kind of patients Ling Ran took, they could still expand their scope of patient indications.

For hospitals, such innovations were very meaningful.

To achieve this kind of innovation, it was natural for them to ask Ling Ran to perform a few cases as a freelance surgeon to verify the truth of those theories.

Those around Ling Ran were competing with each other to be ahead of the other in this new technique.

The first and second hospitals that did this kind of surgery may receive a certain degree of attention. The latter hospitals would not gain the same amount of attention as the first two, which meant that it would be meaningless for them to try to be ahead of the others by then.

As he spoke, Zuo Cidian led Dong Sheng into the restaurant in the operating area. Below the two pots of devil’s ivy was Ling Ran, and he was surrounded by five doctors.

“Doctor Ling, Dong Sheng is here!” Zuo Cidian yelled.

Ling Ran turned his head around and called him over with a smile. “Dong Sheng, have a seat first. I will be finishing in a while.”

Several doctors who were present sensibly and quickly sped up to finish what they wanted to say. In just a few minutes, they left.

When Ling Ran came over to them and sat down, Zuo Cidian narrowed his eyes and asked, “Have you decided? Which hospital should we do our freelance surgeries first?”

“Donghuang Regional Hospital,” Ling Ran said.

Zuo Cidian nodded and rubbed his hands before he said, “Donghuang regional hospital is good. Their conditions are good too, and they have the foundation of dealing with liver and gallbladder cases. Sigh, the hospitals in Beijing are very good. Even a regional hospital can also deal with liver and gallbladder cases. Isn’t that just aggravating?”

Ling Ran waited for him to finish talking before he said, “Donghuang regional hospital has a patient ready already, a seventy-one-year-old woman. You need to recollect her medical history.”

“Huh? Are you doing it all over again?” Zuo Cidian was shocked.

“Professor Feng suggested it.” Zhang Anmin also came by at that time and whispered, “Professor Feng is trying to imply that Beijing is no better than Changxi Province. When we acted as freelance surgeons at Changxi Province, no hospital dare goof around with us. When we reach Beijing, no one will tailor everything to our tastes.”

Zuo Cidian nodded in agreement with what he said, “Professor Feng has experience.”

“Beijing is too complicated. There are many doctors, hospital systems, and a wide range of origins. The prices of lunch boxes are also more expensive than ours.” Zhang Anmin sighed. “Even Professor Feng can’t be sure that he will be welcome in every hospital, so now, he will only act as a backup freelance surgeon in hospitals that he is familiar with.”

“Then, we’ll have to be more attentive. When we pick a hospital, do we have to have a standard?” Zuo Cidian instantly became cautious.

“Donghuang Regional Hospital was under Professor Feng’s tutelage. The current department director of their General Surgery Department is Professor Feng’s student.” Zhang Anmin gave an introduction. He then said, “Donghuang Regional Hospital is quite suitable. The patient originally wanted to have surgery, but they can’t operate on her. No other hospital will accept her as well. Once the family had a discussion, they went to Donghuang Regional Hospital, which is close to home, to undergo traditional treatment. For this reason, their medical history is not done well.”

“Okay.” In Zuo Cidian’s mind, he could already not help fantasizing the scene of Ling Ran holding the scalpel and making shocking scenes everywhere.

He rocked back and forth as he discussed with Zhang Anmin in a low voice about some details. When he turned around, he saw that Ling Ran was reading a book, and Dong Sheng took out a book, held a pen, and wrote in vigor…

“You have to do homework as well?” Zuo Cidian was a little curious.

Dong Sheng was stunned by his question, but he replied, “Yes.”

“It’s not easy for you to come to Beijing. Why don’t you want to go out for a stroll?”

Dong Sheng shook his head.

“In that case, tell me if there’s anywhere you feel like going. I’ll take you there sometime.” Zuo Cidian looked at Dong Sheng’s obedient appearance and could not help but pat his head. Speaking of which, his son and Dong Sheng were more or less the same age, and the more he looked at Dong Sheng, the more he found that he was close to his son’s age.

“I want to do my homework.” Dong Sheng raised his head slightly. “Doctor Zuo, can you play by yourself?”

“I…” Zuo Cidian thought angrily. ‘My son is definitely not like this.’

Zuo Cidian sighed before he turned his head around and said, “Doctor Ling, look at Dong Sheng…”

At the other end of the table, Ling Ran was so into the book—Netter’s Concise Orthopaedic Anatomy—he was reading that he did not know what Zuo Cidian was saying.